Adherence to quality management practices in faith-based hospitals in Ghana: The perspective of healthcare managers

Abstract

BackgroundThe sensitive nature of the healthcare sector places much responsibility on health facility managers to ensure strict adherence to quality standards. The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which managers of hospitals affiliated with the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) adhere to quality management standards and practices. MethodsThis qualitative study employed key informant interviews to explore practices in ten CHAG hospitals in Ghana. We interviewed 36 senior staff across Human Resource, Medical Records, Information Communication and Technology (ICT), and Procurement units. The thematic areas covered in the interviews included adherence to medical records practices, the use of ICTs, procurement practices, and recruitment and retention. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. ResultsStrict adherence to standard hospital management protocols were low as most hospitals selected for this study were found to be in breach of adhering to the four key areas of hospital management practices: medical records, ICT, procurement and human resources. For instance, we found that most hospitals did not have Medical Records Committee as against the WHO standards for managing patient records. Also, most hospitals did not have well-resourced and established procurement units. The study again revealed similar findings for the management of human resource and ICTs in the hospitals. ConclusionsManagers of the CHAG hospitals failed to adhere to guidelines and protocols for managing certain key management areas of their health care facilities. This may have negative implications for quality health care delivery, including irregular supply of goods and services, high attrition rate of critical healthcare personnel, long patient waiting times and an overall poor quality of patient care. Although, hospital managers are confronted with several challenges that impede their efforts to adhere to these management protocols, it is important they put measures in place to address these challenges.